On Thursday, A jury in Hennepin county Minnesota, found former Brooklyn Minn., Police officer, Kim Potter, guilty on all charges she faced for the fatal shooting of Black motorist Daunte wright during a traffic stop after she claimed she mistook her gun for taser earlier this year.
The 12-person predominantly white jury which consisted of one Black person, two Asian American persons and 9 white people found Potter guilty of first- and second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Daunte Wright.
The jury deliberated on the case for about four days before concluding on guilty verdicts for Kimberly Potter, a 49-year-old white woman who testified on her defense that she “Didn’t want to hurt anybody,” and had never fired her gun while on the police force until she shot a single bullet into the chest of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who she stopped when he was driving to a carwash in April as she and other officers tried to arrest him on an outstanding warrant for weapons possession charge.
Ms. potter appeared emotionless as the Hennepin county panel read the guilty verdict and during courtroom arguments after the verdict was read. But Potter’s legal team appeared to have an emotional response to the guilty verdict, with photos showing one of her attorneys, Earl Gray, burying his head in his hands after the jury was excused. thereafter, she was handcuffed and both of her attorneys tried to console her as they put their hands on her shoulders.
in the case of the second degree manslaughter, prosecutors had to prove that potter caused wright’s death “by her culpable negligence,” meaning she “caused an unreasonable risk and consciously took a chance of causing death or great bodily harm” to Daunte wright while possessing a firearm.
The former Brooklyn Minn., police officer is scheduled to be sentenced at a hearing in February 18. According to Insider, The more serious of the two counts, first-degree manslaughter, is punishable by as much as 15 years in prison, though the standard sentence is about half that.
Reacting to the Guilty verdict, Daunte Wright’s mother, Katie Bryant, says in a news conference that she was feeling “every single emotion that you could imagine” when she heard the guilty verdict.
Also reacting to potter’s conviction, Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general whose office handled the successful prosecution of Kimberly Potter, spoke at a post-verdict news conference with Daunte Wright’s parents: “At 20, Daunte could’ve done anything.”
Ellison said that his thoughts are also with Potter, who he believes “has gone from being an esteemed member of the community and honored member of a noble profession to being convicted of a serious crime.” He said: “I don’t wish that on anyone, but it was our responsibility as the prosecution, as ministers of justice, to pursue justice wherever it led, and the jury found the facts.”